All about eavesdropping and industrial espionage

HACKING is what makes most companies nervous but the evidence shows that fraud and industrial espionage are committed mainly by existing staff.

One answer is encryption, which will also solve the problem of eavesdroppers, and recent legislation giving the Government increased powers to intercept computer traffic has added it to the list of those who could be listening in.

The best encryption program, of the nine tested by the magazine Secure Computing, is PGP Corporate Desktop Security from Network Associates. It can use a public-key system of up to 4,096 bits and costs £130.

It also recommends Encryption Plus at £70 from PC Guardian, which uses 1,024 public-key encryption, and Invisible Secrets at $35 (£24) from Neobyte Solutions, which uses stegonagraphy - burying information in a normal file such as a photograph so nobody realises there is anything hidden.